Playing Doctor

Chapter 17

One Year After

I sat in my room, staring at the newly painted walls. I wanted the purple to cover up the pink that used to be there. It was something new as if to mark that I was starting all over again. My fingers brushed against my comforter. It was old. I had gotten it for Christmas, the year before my Granny died of lung cancer. It was pink with little butterflies on it. I had loved it but now it didn't feel like it fit me anymore. The butterflies seems childish and I didn't feel like a kid anymore.

My therapist admits I probably never will again.

I didn't know what to think about that yet.

"Andi, are you almost ready?" My mom's voice came before I saw her face pop up in my doorway. She was smiling sweetly, her eyes aged far beyond her forty five years. These events had aged her just as it had me.

"I just want a few more minutes," I answered. She nodded before leaving, giving me a little space to myself.

Today was the one year anniversary of me coming home. And I didn't know how I felt about it. The events were ingrained into my skull, into my being, and I felt like if I looked at them again they would tear me apart. But I had been working so hard to just get where I was today. Therapy and real hospitals and doctors visits and physical therapy. The tears, the panic...the PTSD.

The trial had already began. Soon I would have to stand witness and I didn't know how I felt. Relieved that I would be getting justice but also terrified I would have to relive every last moment. And I would have to look at them again.

Henry had been arrested the day I escaped. It had been torture. The cops had taken so long and I had ended up barricaded in the bathroom, curled up against the toilet and the counter for what seemed like hours. It hadn't seemed real when the police broke down the door. I had been half dead. Barely there anymore.

I had been in a coma for two months afterward.

That news still felt unreal to me. It had felt like nothing. One moment I was staring at the police, their gear reflecting the harsh light of the bathroom and the next I was in a hospital bed, my parents worried and swollen eyes staring down at me.

Kelly had filled me in because my parents were too scared to tell me. They arrested Henry and later found Brenda in Iowa with their navy blue Impala. The Impala had a seriously dented hood and paint scratches by the left headlight. Someone had thought it strange and called the cops. Good thing they did. She had gone into custody that day. They weren't going to hurt me anymore.

Or anyone else.

I shivered and bit my lip. My fingers ruffled through news clips. I had been collecting them since I got back. I even had a few from when I first went missing. The beginning ones were all short and bleak. They started with a missing person report, and then an image of my mangled bike sitting on the side of the road, and then my parents worried faces. Words stuck out. Kidnapping. Hit and run. Missing. Dead. None of them knew that I had been about a hundred miles down the road.

After I was found the clippings became longer, my pictures plastered all over the front page like I was some kind of trophy. My story was everywhere. But it was edited, watered down for the public so no one else got traumatized. Just me.

And the police dug for information. They ransacked the whole house; pulled up every piece of tile and every strand of grass.

That's when they found the three others.

My heart sank every time I remember them. I had almost been them.

The first girl was found buried under the porch. She had been nothing but a garbage bag of bones and scraps of pajamas. Ruby Douglas, thirteen years old. She had gone missing from the next town over about eight years ago. I barely remember hearing about her. I barely remembering anyone caring. She was labeled a run away. Now she was in a coffin because no one went to look for her. Ruby's death: strangulation.